


Oldest sins cast the darkest shadows

by JudeStFrancis



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Genre: F/F, I don't know, Originally Posted on Instagram, Romance (?), based on one (1) facebook post, the ending made me sad so I wrote this, tried to research, unfortunate pacing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeStFrancis/pseuds/JudeStFrancis
Summary: A decade after their parting, Marianne accidentally meets Sophie in Milan and flips Heloise's life over once again.Originally posted on Instagram (@c.nv.s).Based on a Facebook post comparing the painting of Heloise's daughter with a picture of Celine Sciamma.
Relationships: Héloïse & Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Part 1

The small studio/bedroom combination felt colder than usual as Marianne rose from the bed. She had decided the night before to go on a walk in the morning before it got too cold for walks to be enjoyable. As she strode along the streets of Milan, head in the clouds, her eye caught a familiar face. In utter disbelief she quickened her pace to catch up to the young woman.  
  
Marianne: Sophie?  
Sophie: Madam!  
Marianne: What are you doing in Milan?  
Sophie: I followed Heloise here after the death of the countess.  
Marianne: Heloise is here-  
Sophie: Yes.  
  
A long pause, Marianne looks away.  
  
Marianne: could I see her?  
  
The rest of Marianne’s day had passed in turmoil. The only thought that ran through her head was of Heloise. As the sun set, the remaining rays flowing cloud to cloud in an ethereal liquid, Marianne made her way across the city briskly, hoping she hadn’t imagined the encounter.  
  
\---------------------------------------------  
  
The door closes behind Sophie. The two are left in silence, nearly ten paces apart. The familiar look of Heloise in the green dress throws Marianne for a loop. They share looks, never meeting eyes. The silence is broken by a sharp inhale from Marianne;  
  
Marianne: Heloise…  
  
An indecipherable sort of gravity pulls Heloise to Marianne until her head falls into place in the crook of Marianne’s neck. They lock together, feather light, the same way as they had a mere decade ago.  
  
Heloise: You told me not to forget.  
  
A timid knock interrupts their moment. Reluctantly, Heloise breaks away. She walks to the door and opens it. A young girl, around 8 or 9 years old, emerges from the darkish hallway. She possesses an uncanny resemblance with Heloise. The child looks with suspicion at the woman standing near the fireplace. Marianne looks on as Heloise bends down as the child whispers into her ear. She whispers back and the child, with a massive grin on her face, skips off clumsily leaving the door open. Heloise looks on, smiling, and gently closes the door. She looks back at Marianne.  
  
Heloise: Celine.  
Marianne: That’s a beautiful name.  
  
A long silence ensues  
  
Marianne: and the father.  
  
No response follows, Heloise looks away  
  
Marianne: The countess.  
  
No response. Heloise walks over to the bed in the corner of the room. Marianne hesitantly follows. Heloise looks back at Marianne, a massive grin — one she had passed down to her daughter — spanning her face momentarily. She reaches under the pillow and pulls out a battered book. A fleeting look of recognition passes over Marianne. Heloise opens the book to the 28th page, inside is the drawing of Marianne.  
  
\---------------------------------------------  
  
Marianne, shuddering, gets up off the bench and walk aimlessly in a circle. They had decided the previous night to meet once again. Marianne had begun to wonder whether she had gotten the wrong bench when Heloise appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Their eyes meet and linger, the looks of passerby’s seem not to disturb them. Finally they begin to stroll down the stone paved path past the open windows and the small crowds, past the world as it seems. They strode in silence, waiting for the other to speak and voice the decade old longing.  
  
Heloise: I wake up alone every morning [Marianne slows down and looks over at Heloise] and then I wonder why I wake up at all.  
  
A silence falls between them, they stride on.  
  
Heloise: Since the day of my birth, fate has been walking alongside me, eternal and predestined, guiding my every move. […] I must be thankful, I suppose, for the one thing I have that I do not deserve, that fate could not steer me away from.  
Marianne: What’s that?  
Heloise: You.  
Marianne smiles and looks down  
Marianne: I hear if you’re up in the early hours of the morning you’re either in love or lonely […] and I don’t know which is worse.  
Heloise: The two are not mutually exclusive.  
Marianne: no…  
  
They walk on in silence.


	2. Part 2

They arrive back to the doorstep long after sunset having had exchanged few words but many glances. Indoors, a soft glow emanated from the fireplace as the pair made their way across the kitchen and further into the secluded shadows of the quiet hallways and mostly empty rooms. Heloise waves at a door further down the hallway and looks back at Marianne.  
  
Heloise: That room is for you  
Marianne: Good night…  
  
Heloise walks into her room. Marianne lingers in the hallway before following a tired Heloise into her bedroom. Heloise, in her night dress, watches Marianne take off her outer garments until she too is in her night dress. Marianne climbs into the bed exhausted.  
  
Heloise: You’ll stay?  
Marianne: Yes […] always.  
Marianne: you won’t wake up alone.  
  
The lovers wrap their arms around one another, intertwined as close as humanly possible, a delirious giggle directed at nothing in particular escapes Heloise and Marianne joins in.  
  
Marianne whispers: There are many many words and yet... I can’t find the right ones.  
Heloise: me neither.  
  
Intertwined together to keep the warmth, they drift off to sleep.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The light patter of footsteps awoke Marianne followed by Sophie’s familiar stride, one Marianne had remembered fondly over the last 10 years. Heloise’s soft breathing echoed through Marianne a feeling of pseudo despair only a sufficient amount of hope could create. She lay motionless until the footsteps have subsided. Slowly, Heloise wakes. Their eyes lock, this time they do not break away. A long silence ensues broken only by the softened sounds of falling rain.  
  
Marianne: I have reproduced your image many times and yet I see you now as if I have never seen you before.  
Heloise: Can we always be this close…?  
  
No answer. Marianne draws Heloise ever closer. It is a beautiful comfort sometimes, just to have someone’s arms around you, to live outside the realm of the pragmatic, to revel in the simplicity of your fingers tracing your lover’s skin, a comfort they now shared. In that moment, being alive felt a little more worthwhile.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The rain poured on outdoors but in the kitchen, the atmosphere was rather cozy. Sophie, with some help from Celine, had prepared some soup. Heloise splits bread into four and wordlessly hands off the slightly bigger piece to Marianne. The lovers sit apart, miles of unspoken rules seated between them. Marianne looks around at the three others;  
  
Marianne: Will anyone else be joining us?  
  
A brief silence settles in.  
  
Sophie: No.  
  
The young girl squirms in her seat, waiting to be released from the strange discomfort of the table. A whisper from her mother and the child skips off looking back at Marianne with slight suspicion. Sophie follows the young girl out nodding at the two on her way out. Marianne walks to the fire and lights a candle. Heloise, in turn, opens a window and reaches out. The candlelight falters under the cold morning air. Heloise looks back;  
  
Heloise: I love the rain. It washes the world clean and it feels like maybe just maybe we can run away and start over somewhere.  
Marianne: […]Something is hurting you. And you’re talking to me about the weather. And worst of all I’m letting you.  
Heloise: I simply don’t know what to do.  
Marianne: Tell me.  
Heloise: I don’t know anything, I don’t feel anything, I don’t know anything about the world at all. All I know is before you, and after you. And now you’re back and it all feels like a dream.  
Marianne: At least it’s not a nightmare.  
Heloise grins involuntarily, Marianne approaches and reaches out into the rain.


	3. Part 3

Marianne stands in the middle of the room at the end of the hallway, the insides are charred black. Heloise appears in the doorway.  
  
Heloise: He died here. There was a fire.  
Marianne: Your husband?  
Heloise: Yes.  
Marianne: …How did it start?  
Heloise: The drape around the bed caught fire. He was asleep […] When I opened the door the room was on fire. I got Celine and ran out with Sophie. It was unforgivable.  
Marianne: I’m sorry.  
Heloise: I could smell it… him. Burning. Like beef, and I watched… Marianne...  
Heloise: They helped us put the fire out but… now I’m alone I suppose. Freed in my solitude as you said. Now all I have is property and money that is not mine. And Celine.  
Heloise: And now I am a prisoner of a memory, some fear I cannot change that defines me.  
Marianne: Memory of what?  
Heloise: Of you. Are you not but a memory? The five days we spent together… I can’t help but feel that I will be alone forever and then I will die and all I will have to remember my life by is you. Maybe I should have been more courageous… If I could make that decision now, marry or… I’d choose to drown with my lover.  
Marianne: Or maybe I could teach you to swim.  
  
\------------------------------------  
  
Marianne could remain patient no longer. Her commitment painting a Milanese gentleman was coming to a close and yet Milan had become more and more a fever dream than a business trip. She was anxious to figure out just what to do next but her mind was elsewhere.  
  
Heloise stands before her as the sum total of hundreds of unfinished paintings, lines of poorly written poetry and stacks of letters she had never had the courage to write preserved in the deepest chambers of her heart. The worst, most frightening part; it seemed to her that Heloise had finally began to deal with the misery of her predicament and now here she was, a false ray of hope, reminding her constantly of what could have been. Remembering those five days without regret over and over for the last ten years had been tasking for the both of them, much easier said than done.  
  
Walking back to her studio she caught herself on a strange thought, maybe they were made to be apart, to celebrate the standstill of time for five days and to live the rest of their lives stuck in a cycle of remembrance and semi-fulfilled desire. Maybe they were meant to stop holding everything so tightly. Then again, if one only does what one is meant to do, life becomes a mere existence.  
  
\------------------------------------  
  
Heloise sat alone in the kitchen. This had become a spot she frequented often, especially in recent times. She looked on at the bottle of red wine, her husband’s favorite, or so she had assumed having had witnessed him drinking it far too often.  
She felt strangely disconcerted. She had just become accustomed to the daily turmoil of life drowning out the decade old loss and she had just spent the night sleeping next to a ghost.  
  
Urged by public opinion to remain a widow, Heloise, having had taken no notice to her husband’s affairs, was now increasingly aware of the hopelessness of the position she was in. As the owner of a great deal of money and some land, she was nevertheless seated very precariously at the hearth of tranquility. The money is a great benefit and yet, it would not last forever. She had decided to sell as much as she possibly could and settle comfortably with Sophie and Celine, undertaking outside work to avoid idleness  
  
Sophie: Madam?  
Heloise: Oh, hi. What’s the matter?  
Sophie: I understand it is not really my place to ask but… something is the matter. Are you alright?  
Heloise: Yes… Yes I’m alright.  
Sophie: I’m glad she’s found us.  
Heloise: Yes. Me too […] I think.  
Sophie: madam?  
Heloise: It feels like a dream. A decade has gone by and yet here she is and we take off right from where we left…  
Heloise: Sophie,  
Sophie: Yes madam?  
Heloise : Do you know how to swim?  
Sophie: No, I don’t think so.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it :D


End file.
